Bill to Reform Workers’ Comp

Your editorial is misguided in praising Margolin’s bill as “ambitious reform.” I urge you to compare the details of the legislation with the recommendations you made in your April 28 editorial. You will find that Margolin’s bill is little more than a sham.

The bill does not eliminate stress claims, does not give enough employers control over medical costs, does not significantly reduce the cost of medical-legal evaluations, and does not sufficiently reform vocational rehabilitation. The bill requires much more than “fine tuning” in order to amount to real reform.

Amendments that would have put real teeth into the legislation were killed by Margolin and the Assembly leadership. If the legislation passes the Senate in its current form, it should be vetoed.

The legislators who engaged in this cynical ploy should be voted out. They’ll probably file stress claims. They should also file for vocational rehabilitation. They’ll need it.

DAVID F. FAUSTMAN, Los Angeles